2. Ask if she can cover up while nursing. Breastfeeding is one of the most patience depleting, emotional wrecking balls New Mom will ever face. If she covers up on her own, more power to her. If she whips her boob out to feed her new baby and you’re uncomfortable, dismiss yourself to the kitchen and start loading the dishwasher.

3. Show up unannounced. Call or text first and ask. Aside from being sleep-deprived, exhausted, and sore, there’s a good chance New Mom is also half naked because why put the boobs away if baby is just going to want them again in five minutes?

4. Tell her to sleep when the baby sleeps. Maybe it’s just me, but I hated this piece of advice. Sure, I’ll sleep once all 84 burp rags are washed and put away, my kitchen doesn’t look like a FEMA zone, and my legs don’t bare a not so vague resemblance to Bigfoot.

5. Offer to hold the baby so New Mom can clean her house or shower. You have it backwards. You should offer to do the dishes or make dinner or fold laundry while New Mom enjoys precious moments with her new bundle of joy.Read More »10 Ways to Annoy a New Mom

Due to my lack of concern, I’ve stopped offering my opinion on parenting things because most moms find me a bit too cut and dry for their taste. But no more! Here are ten no-nonsense, hyper-honest pieces of unwanted advice:

1. Your child will sleep through the night when they feel like it. There is nothing you can do to make it magically happen. You can try swaddling, unswaddling, loading them up on rice cereal, a bedtime routine, a dance routine, etc. You know what will actually work? Time and patience.

2. Babies will survive ten seconds without you so you can go pee. Or even seven minutes so you can take a quick shower. If they’re fed and clean and in a safe place, they’ll be fine. Go to the bathroom alone while you still can.

3. You don’t need a fancy changing table. A blanket works just fine as does a towel, shirt, or if you’re feeling lucky, nothing at all. Put ’em down on the floor and break a new speed record out of fear that any second they will poop all over your carpet.Read More »10 No-Nonsense Tips for Parents

In my experience, it takes about a year to come out of the fog that blankets one’s life after having a child. Or a second child. Or a third or fourth or fifth or however many babies one has pushed out of their woman parts. For me it was two, and I am more than pleased with that number as is my uterus.

My son recently turned one and the cloud has begun to lift. The days and nights are slowly moving towards “normal” and I wake up in the morning with a vague idea of what to expect. My daughter will disobey me at least once a day causing discipline and tears and later apologies and hugs. My son will throw a tantrum over something really, really silly like my not allowing him to play in the toilet. (Can someone please tell my kids there is no “toy” in the word “toilet?”) I will spend a long time in the evenings apologizing to my vacuum for what I put it through, and occasionally rearrange my daughter’s dolls in entertaining ways to amuse myself.

But now that I’m seeing clearly for the first time in two years, I’ve noticed some side effects of parenting that no one ever told me about.

1. An uncanny, and impressive, knowledge of Sesame Street plot lines.You need tin foil to make Rocko the Rock float in water! Max the Magician is using addition and subtraction! Big Bird doesn’t understand that moving habitats means leaving everything he’s ever known on Sesame Street!

2. The laughable notion of a “quick’ shower. Showers now take at least 15 minutes. Not only because a short, babbling audience is sure to emerge once you get undressed, but because the first five minutes you’re in the bathroom are spent picking up and putting away bath toys. And maybe cleaning or sterilizing them if you’re one of those parents. I am not. And, yeah, I kinda feel bad about it.Read More »7 Side Effects of Parenting

I haven’t learned how to get my son to stop grabbing himself every chance he gets, but I have learned a few things since kicking and screaming my way into parenthood.

1. The 5-second rule is actually closer to a week for kids. My son will come crawling into the kitchen to find me while gnawing on a piece of waffle and I’ll think, “When was the last time we had waffles? Where did he find that? Can it count as his lunch? Is there enough for Lillian?”

2. Chicken and Rice baby food tastes nothing like chicken and rice. It is nasty. It tastes like nasty. Why is it sweet? And why did I taste it in the first place? Oh, right, because my baby flung it onto my face when he realized it was nasty.Read More »6 Things I’ve Learned Since Becoming a Mom